Category: Academics

The Dichotomy of New Experiences: Pre-Departure Thoughts of a First-Gen Student

Published on by Hannah AdamsLeave a comment

T–Minus 50 Days Until Take Off 

I keep waiting to wake up. For someone to tell me that this was only a dream, and that I am not actually leaving for Japan in 50 days. If I was a character in a children’s television show, I would yell out to the world, “Somebody pinch me!” and hope that, by some miraculous force, someone’s hand would pinch mine. 

And yet, here I am: not a children’s television character, but a human, wide awake and experiencing this in real time.

I exist in a constant state of disbelief that this is even happening to me. Last week, my friends and I officially booked our flights to Japan. This morning, I officially accepted my Gilman Scholarship Award and am in the process of finalizing everything. It finally set in that this is actually real.

I am actually going to Japan! My first ever international trip! I’m giddy just at the thought that these words are my reality, that I am doing so in this lifetime, and it isn’t just my imagination.

I still have so much to do in preparation for my departure, but I am so excited to have this new experience with my friends. We have already started planning different places we want to see and visit and have even started looking at the coffee shops and cafés near our campus. I started a wish list for things I need, along with a list of everyone I want to buy souvenirs for and what to buy them. I am planning solo-travel days and downloading different travel itineraries from travel influencers and locals on what things to do when in Japan. 

I created a widget on my phone that counts down how many days I have left until we leave and I constantly find myself checking in on it, hoping the days continuously get lower and lower until it’s eventually the day of take off and I am stepping on that plane platform. But alas, the days stay 24 hours, and the weeks stay 7 days. 

As a first-generation student, this is something that I never expected to have ever been able to do, especially for no cost. Simply being the first one in my family for many generations to receive a higher education is an utmost blessing in and of itself but having the opportunity to study abroad is the opportunity of a lifetime. I carry the dreams of my ancestors along with me in my shadow, and I bring everything they taught me throughout my actions in my life. It is because of them that I am even in college getting the ability to even have this opportunity. 

It is for these reasons, though, despite my excitement, that I am also incredibly anxious anticipating what awaits me. 

The unknown is both welcoming and extremely terrifying. 

Trying to know what to expect and how to plan accordingly as a first-generation student has been a challenge I knew would come, but was unexpectedly underprepared for. How does one apply for a visa? Or navigate customs? How do I know what forms I need and how to get them if my mom also has no idea? 

Going this far away from home for the first time is also going to be a major adjustment that I am nervous for. I moved away from home for college, but there is a difference between moving from the green peaks of the Appalachians to the snowy peaks of the Rockies, and moving across oceans to be in the home place of the beautiful Mount Fuji, yet almost 7,000 miles away from the home I know. 

From mountain peak to mountain peak, navigating the cultural differences is one thing, but I am scared that my naivety will be to my detriment while abroad. This feeling of uncertainty is definitely a strong one, and the imposter syndrome that follows along with it has been becoming increasingly difficult to manage. Everyone else seems to have it all figured out, and yet here I am, unsure and ignorant to the realities and struggles. 

What if I can’t make it abroad? What if everything I planned for ends up falling short because I was underprepared? 

Yet, as I sit and listen to the stories of those around me, I have learned that no one ever has it truly figured out. Sure, it may take me a bit longer to figure out how things work, but, in the end, this will be a new experience for almost everyone. The fear and the excitement are mutually exclusive, and they work in tandem. I have learned that anxiety is normal, and it is okay to feel it! 

First-generation students like myself deserve the opportunity to excel and enter gates that were previously closed to us before. As I savor my final 50 days in Denver, I will use my time to appreciate the privilege of experience and change without denying myself the permission to feel the very real worry that I am feeling. They are not antitheses of one another, but rather welcomed companions on my journey. 

You don’t have to dig for the good stuff

Published on by rhiannalewisLeave a comment

Watching my classmates from DU post pictures from airplane windows on their way back to the United States this past weekend has been bittersweet. On the one hand, I’m jealous. I’d give almost anything to not be glued to this computer cubicle in the ACG library working on final papers. But on the other hand, it’s starting to land that in less than a week, my study abroad experience will be over. Not to worry, though! I’ve got some final-but-not-final thoughts from this semester that I think are worth sharing.

The program I am here with, ISA by WorldStrides, offered us the chance to complete “micro-credentials” while studying abroad. You can work on up to two of these extra courses during your time abroad to earn badges and real-world experience to add to your resumes (and experience of being human) along with your classes. I decided to do the “Choose Earth” micro-credential while here in Athens because I was taking two sustainability courses this semester towards my minor! For our final ‘assignment’, we had to complete some sort of environmental challenge.

During the second half of our program here, I began to recycle my apartment’s bottles, cans, cardboard, and plastic containers. I know that at first, it might seem silly to prioritize recycling plastic bottles so much in the grand scheme of things, but my apartment this semester has been me…and eleven other people. I have only lived with one other person the rest of my life, whether that be in my home or my college dorm, and I was not aware of how much waste 12 people can create in a day. Twelve people can make a lot of waste in a week, especially when those people all come from different homes and do not all believe in consuming things at the same speed. Because of this, I decided to make a serious effort to get our apartment to start recycling.

As easy as this task sounds, it became incredibly clear that it was going to be difficult to complete it for two reasons: my unnecessary stake in it and my roommate’s lack of it. If you’re one of my roommates reading this, Hi! I love living with you and keep reading so you don’t hate me! I made this recycling effort so intense for myself that I felt like I was somehow failing the challenge even though I was in charge of creating the rules. There were days when I was cleaning up in the kitchen when I was digging through the garbage just to make sure we had recycled everything we could. I think this was prompted by the fact that I was also taking two environmental justice + climate change classes this semester, so I constantly felt like global warming was completely my fault as an individual and that I singlehandedly needed to stop it. (Spoiler alert: that’s not how being an environmental steward works.) My roommates also didn’t all remember to do it and some of them don’t recycle at home, so they aren’t used to it. It was a lot of give and take, but slowly we started to recycle.

The biggest thing I learned from creating this challenge was that it’s okay if things don’t go perfectly as long as they are ‘going.’ I felt like this in many other aspects of my life abroad, too. I didn’t think I was taking advantage of traveling in Europe enough while I was here, but I’m bringing home souvenirs from four countries I had never been to before this fall. I was worried my friends from DU who were abroad elsewhere had forgotten about me since we didn’t talk much this semester, and then we had an impromptu FaceTime call last week discussing our excitement to be back in Denver soon. Instead of looking at the big picture, I was getting stuck in the minute details of my life, which was obscuring all the good parts.

It’s easy to get stuck in things like this when we’re passionate about something, especially when we’re in a new country, with new people, and trying to find our footing. This is a reminder to anyone, especially as the calendar year comes to an end, that it’s more important to just do something if it’s that or nothing. Being abroad has taught me that changes won’t always happen seamlessly, but there’s no need to go digging in the trashcan to try and speed up the process.